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Tiny house hero Dee Williams on her book tour, happily meeting 'rabble-rousers and non-conformists'

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Dee Williams, a self-taught carpenter and author of "The Big Tiny: A Built-It-Myself Memoir," describes the mechanics of erecting a sturdy, rainproof, 84-square-foot tiny house on a trailer.
(Janet Eastman)

This stop – which includes a walk inside her 84-square-foot house on wheels – is one of many she has made crisscrossing the country on a book tour intertwined with her ongoing efforts to educate about building, living and enjoying tiny houses.

The self-taught carpenter and founder of the respected resource center, Portland Alternative Dwellings, has lived in her solar-powered home for more than a decade. She cooks using a single propane burner and sleeps in a loft with a small window.

"The house looked gorgeous: just like an ad for pancake syrup or a painting called A Simpler Time," she writes in her inspiring, funny memoir that resonates with anyone on a quest to downsize, de-stress, let go or feel at home.

People interested in green design and plans for an legal accessory dwelling unit can explore Williams' tiny house, from 2 p.m.-3 p.m. Saturday in the parking lot of Vintage Books, 6613 E. Mill Plain Blvd. She will read from her book and answer questions from 3 p.m.-4:30 p.m. inside the bookstore.

Williams has been interviewed by networks and newspaper reporters and has addressed TED Conference audiences, telling her powerful story about selling her high-maintenance Craftsman house in Southeast Portland and gifting away most of her possessions after she was diagnosed with congestive heart failure.

We caught up with her days before she is to tug her tiny house to Vancouver.

Q: You've been on the road telling your story and reading from your book since April. What has been the biggest adjustment being on the book tour circuit?

Dee Williams: I think the largest adjustment has been traveling so much. I'm a homebody – a real "stick in the mud" is what my 20-something-year-old niece would say. But I'm perfectly happy to putter around in my garden, to scavenge wood out of the rubble pile down the street or to play firefighter in the backyard with the four-year-old boy who lives next door. I like being home and the book tour is a bit of a distraction from that normal, mundane, simple life.

The other adjustment occurred by seeing that the small house movement isn't just people who want to build a tiny house (or already have), or people who like cute tiny houses; it's not that simple. Instead, the tiny house movement seems to be a tapestry of openhearted people who are interested in community building; they're interested in living more simply on the earth, investing in their neighbors (both human and natural); they're rabble-rousers and non-conformists, and some of the most compassionate, inclusive thinkers that I've met in a long time. It was invigorating and humbling to meet so many awesome people.

Q. What is the most common question you are asked and how do you answer it?

DW: "Is that legal?" has probably been the most common question. And I usually answer it by saying something like... "ah dang it, not that question!" And then I'll wax on about how much I like rules; that I'm an enforcement officer with the State, and I once cried at a stoplight because the idea of civil law is so beautiful to me – the way we all learn how to stop on red and go on green, and thereby save ourselves from having to tow our cars away in a heap.

So, I'll explain who I am and then launch into how most municipalities apply travel trailer restrictions to wheeled tiny houses. They might restrict where you can park (not on the front lawn, in front of a school, too close to the neighbor's house, etc.) and how long you can recreate inside the unit. If you're living in the space for longer than 30 days or six months, you might be asked to move along.

Q: Since I'm reading the book "Think Like a Freak: The Authors of Freakonomics Offer to Retrain Your Brain," which suggests we all think like kids, I need to ask you, what's your second favorite question? And how do you answer that?

DW: Oh, I love that question and now I'm going to look up that book. I think the second most commonly asked question (especially when I'm dealing with grade school kids) is how do I poop. I respond by clarifying that I poop just like they do. Then I'll launch into a discussion of my compost toilet and how it has made me #1 in the #2 business with regard to understanding my bodily functions and the mysterious world of composting.

Q. Are you thinking of writing a follow-up book? Or what are your plans?

DW: I'm kicking around the idea of a children's book or a more elaborate how-to book. I'd also like to do something of a writing/drawing journal, a series of prompts focused on "tiny curiosities" where the reader is invited into a greater examination of the awesomeness of their life and how they are likely walking around in a superhero cape that is waiting to be released out the back of their shirt.

Q: There has to be a fifth question you want to answer. What is it?

DW: I think a good question is "has it all been worth it?" We all get caught up in our projects and efforts at this or that. Over the past 18 months, I've spent a lot of time on the book and on tiny house stuff, and it begs the question: Was it worth the time away from home, away from my friends and family? Has it been worth less time walking down the nature trail behind my house and seeing how a raccoon has dragged the neighbor's garbage down the alley again? Is it worth not remembering my brother's birthday last year or being able to help my neighbor rent a wood chipper this year?

I don't know. I've had many amazing new experiences and I'm proud of my book – that it was written and now has a life in other people's hands. And, I'm very happy to be at home again and inhabiting my little life with time to fish the shopping carts out of the estuary muck under the bridge. I drag them up a short hill and push them back to the grocery store down the hill, all because I imagine they'd get in the way of some wildness... some spectacular, extraordinary thing that was supposed to happen. I feel like a super hero doing that. I know that's a silly thing, but it's true.